2014-06-06 17:26 GMT+02:00 Christoph Wickert <christoph.wickert(a)gmail.com>:
Hi Jiri,
thanks for bringing this up. I just responded to one of these requests
and I really think this is something we should discuss. I wanted to
write a blog post about it, but given the timing, discussing this here
is probably quicker.
Yes, thanks for bringing this up quickly, because I think we really
should discuss this better and clear some important things. I would
have brought this up for sure in the next FAmSCo and EMEA meeting, and
starting this thread here is a good choice.
I think whatever we come up with, it MUST not be limited to
ambassadors,
even if the regional budget is managed by FAmSCo and therefor –
indirectly – by the ambassadors.
+1
[snip]
> As much as I'd love to see every Fedora contributor at Flock
we have to
> reflect the reality that our resources are limited. So this sponsorship
> should be an exceptional thing.
+1. I think every region should give say 5-10 wildcards to people who
have not been sponsored from the FLOCK budget and have achieved
something in their community throughout the last year(s).
Yes, I like this idea, and why not (as Gerold said) put this also in
the budget planning for next year.
I agree to everything you wrote. And I want to add something:
Frankly
speaking I consider the current FLOCK sponsorship model broken. We
currently sponsor speakers and if money is left, we sponsor people from
regions that have no FUDCon and who's budget has become part of the
FLOCK budget.
I see no reason to sponsor somebody because he happens to live in this
or that part of the world. I'm not even sure I want people sponsored for
giving a talk. (I am giving two talks and did not ask for sponsoring
this year).
What I really want us to do is to enable people to get shit done. When
Robyn first brought up the idea of a global conference, she didn't call
it FUDCon but "DoCon". Let's all take a moment and read her proposal at
http://robyn.io/2012/07/24/the-future-of-fudcons/ again, it explains
many things a lot better than I possibly could.
If you want a hackfest one some crucial Fedora infrastructure, we should
definitely sponsor you. If you want to meet with team mates to do
planning for your awesome Fedora 22 feature, we should sponsor you, too.
If you want to attend a workshop to learn skills that will help you to
get more productive as contributor, you should probably apply for
sponsorship as well. But if you 'just' want to attend some talks and
hang out with the community, you are of course welcome at FLOCK, but
frankly speaking I see not much reason to sponsor you.
+1, that's it!
FLOCK is the result of NA+EMEA FUDCons, which were the biggest of the
4 FUDCons we had. But actually, and Ruth was very clear abou this,
subsidy is granted only for speakers, the others won't get any
reimbursement. This implies that most of the budget goes to NA
speakers, and as it is in Europe this year there will be probably
nothing left.
Doing it this way we will have a lot of speakers, but less
contributors, while FUDCon was really a User and Developer Conference,
where also contributors got some subsidy and this was one of the best
motivational points we had for new and active contributors who wanted
to work on some projects during FUDCon (and want to do it at FLOCK
now...).
There are a lot of non 'Redhatters' in EMEA, which are contributing
actively to CLoud, ARM, Infra and many other groups. Most of them are
also ambassadors, but probably they don't give a talk, because in
these specific groups we have very experienced people who might give
more complete talks. They won't get any subsidy, they will get
nothing, and that is not correct in my opinion.
We should at least have some FLOCK budget to reimburse flights, the
average cost of a flight ticket from european cities to Prague is
about 150€. I don't think we should sponsor the whole trip, what about
just traveling costs and the rest is up to them? With 5-6k $ we would
be able to sponsor flight tickets for 25 or perhaps 30 people, I think
that would be the right answer for the work they are doing and it is
less than 10% of the whole FLOCK budget.
Short proposal:
* Every region should give away a number of wildcards, depending
on their budget.
* FAmSCo sets a deadline for requests.
* Candidates should apply (through trac? by mail?) and apply why
their request is relevant.
* Local communities and FAmSCo review the requests and make a
decision.
I know this is just a sketch, but it's basically the same process we
have successfully been doing for FUDCons for years. (I really don't see
why we didn't to this for FLOCK, too).
+1, if we can't have any FLOCK budget this should be the way to go on.
I also don't understand why we don't process the requests in public;
speakers or not, we should trac it.
Best regards,
Christoph
Thank you all for this useful discussion and ideas.
Best regards.
--
Robert Mayr
(robyduck)